


Carousel

by NightDragon5656, OneshotAccount (NightDragon5656)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dark, Depression, Fear, Insomnia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scared Keith (Voltron), Suicidal Thoughts, When I’ve actually finished it, Worried Lance (Voltron), Worried Paladins, Wow what a start, that tag will die when I have
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 15:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18594265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightDragon5656/pseuds/NightDragon5656, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightDragon5656/pseuds/OneshotAccount
Summary: Keith has had it with life. He’s tried to end it so many times yet always fails in the end. No one has noticed and he now isolates himself for days, starving, dehydrated and severely sleep deprived. The boy mutilates his body to stay awake and they continue to pile onto his self. When someone finds him how will he react? Will he welcome the new attention and love he receives? Or will he mentally implode at the new environmental and social changes?





	Carousel

**Author's Note:**

> This is dark. You have been warned.

This seemingly never ending cycle that forces them to play for it. 

 

It watches them fuck up over and over again, likely laughing at them and possibly cheering on the ones that they like; the ones that will consequently live a much better life. For that _is_ the cycle: life.

 

And Keith wants out.

 

But as many times as he’d wanted to go through with his death, he’d chickened out and lost his resolve. And so he continued suffering, sure that the cycle was mocking him just out of reach. It was infuriating and quite apparently terrifying to him which was why he was doing what he did every night now, despite his poor body’s pleas to stop. He was keeping himself awake, huddled in the corner of his room, drowning in his thoughts and away from the bed as to not be tempted to just lay down in it. Every time he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness he would make another small cut on his left leg. 

 

Originally, he’d started on his right leg but after weeks of doing small cuts - nearly every inch was covered in them; he’d started doing it during the day too for every failure he contributed to he gave himself five deeper ones - he had to move on. However, on some of those days he had failed and had fallen to sleep only to be woken up a few hours later by someone knocking insistently on his door because he’d slept in. 

 

He would always punish himself for doing that. 

 

Many times he’d thought about ending it all; had come so close too... but failed. Whether it was standing before the airlock but running away in tears, setting the rope up in his room but letting himself out of it before he could kick the box out from under him, not pressing deep enough and being too afraid to try again when he held his blade to his wrist, throwing the Altean gun across the room from where it had been resting against his temple, hands trembling and finger physically incapable of pushing the trigger, or turning off the training system just before the gladiator had beaten him into unconsciousness; he couldn’t do it.

 

He tried so, so,  so many times.It... h-he just  couldn’t.

 

But he wanted to end it so badly; he hated everything: the Alteans for bringing him into this useless war, the Galra for attempting to take over the universe, his teammates for not only not noticing anything but flat out ignoring him and leaving him out of everything they do except meetings and fighting the Galra. He hated the teachers and government officials when they’d kicked him out of the Garrison for lashing out after one of them blamed Shiro for the Kerberos mission failure. He hated his foster families for not caring and letting these feelings fester for years. He even despised the orphanage for practically ignoring him every time he was sent back to it after another failed adoption, Keith hated his mother for leaving when he was still so young, giving him trust and abandonment issues, he hated his father for dying just a few years after his mother left them, but most of all... Keith hated himself. 

 

He hated how he lead himself and the others to the Blue Lion, consequently meeting the Alteans, he hated how he was part of the race trying to overtake the universe, he hated himself for retreating into himself and being the ‘emo loner’ again therefore making his teammates think he didn’t want to take part in anything they do. He hated his hotheadedness and recklessness and his obvious anger issues that forced him out of the  only place he’d ever felt he had done something good at. He was good at flying; he would’ve got high grades and spent his adult life flying Earth ships on  Earth terms, not in stupid robotic lions against aliens. He hated how he didn’t let anyone close to him and was too scared to properly interact with the foster families after they tried at first and he hated himself for accepting it when they started leaving him out, forgetting he was there, not feeding him, and sending him back. He hated himself for not letting the carers take care of him which made him lonely and touch starved. Keith despised himself for being the reason his mother left. He despised himself for being the reason his dad died;the stupid toy didn’t really matter but he still insisted on his dad getting it. The fire had killed him before he even made it outside again. 

 

Keith despised that he couldn’t even commit suicide. 

 

It’s such a simple thing to do and he got too scared every time. He failed.

 

So he was stuck on this carousel of life, going round and round but without the luxury of getting off early. He was too afraid he’d fail and get stuck on it, getting the attention of others in the process who would prevent him from trying to get off early more so than before. If he did that then they would stare at him, pity him openly and likely laugh at him when his back was turned. Many would probably curse him for failing to fall off; it would’ve been to their amusement. 

 

So maybe he should just wait. 

 

He should wait here, in the corner of his room until he dies of dehydration or something else. 

 

But first he should lock his door, he wouldn’t want the others to watch him die; he didn’t want to see their relieved and joyful faces when they find out that he was going to die. 

 

Maybe he should write a note to tell them sorry for being a bother and not dying before then. 

 

Yeah, he’ll do that.

 

~~~

 

Lance’s POV

 

“Keith, wake up, breakfast is ready and Hunk made a new type of goo that tastes like pancakes. You can’t miss it.” 

 

Silence greeted him and, fed up with same response he’d been getting for the past few days and with the simple lack of  Keith, he turned to the button to open the door himself. If Keith was going to sulk from the last mission that he fucked up on, then Lance was going to bring him out of it.

 

However, the monotone, robotic, female voice that sounded notified him that the door had been locked from the inside.

 

Why had Keith done that?

 

Oh well, he’d get Pidge to remedy that small hindrance. 

 

~~~

 

Sure enough, ten minutes later, the door had been unlocked via Pidge’s expert hacking and Lance’s hand was hovering above the button, strangely unable to press it. 

 

Some deep, ominous sense of dread had quite suddenly welled up inside him that was currently wriggling around in his stomach like a large parasite. 

 

Something bad had happened. 

 

And it involved Keith. 

 

~~~

 

His hand shook as he finally pressed the button and the door seemed to take an eternity to open, Lance’s eyes widening immediately once it did. 

 

The hand that had previously pressed the opening button covered his nose and mouth instantly; the room smelled overwhelmingly of blood. With the lights off he couldn’t see much but his glimmering blue orbs could focus on the slight movement in the far corner of the room. It was low down but wasn’t the movement of anything crawling or running or anything of the type, it was a very clear, very  violent trembling. 

 

In fact, in the near silence, he could faintly here the very quiet, almost non-existent sound of something muttering. Lance took one step into the room and the creature startled, jerking backwards before seemingly remembering that it was in a corner and so began just rocking back and forth, the incoherent mutterings raising in both volume and, if it was possible, speed. 

 

So the Blue Paladin stayed very still where he was, not daring to move an inch except for when he decided he was safe enough to speak quietly. 

 

“H-hey, are you okay? Who a-are you? Where’s Keith?”

 

That was when the creature shifted a tiny amount and it was illuminated ever so slightly by the light still coming in from behind Lance in the hallway. It was also when, in consequence, Lance realised that this  was Keith.  Well, that’s two questions answered. 

 

Now that he knew the creature - _Keith_ \- wasn’t going to hurt him... he hoped... he walked up to him slowly and then crouched down before him with enough distance between them as to not somehow trigger the shaking boy before him. 

 

Lance spoke quietly, softly and patiently, fully aware that something serious was going on here. “Keith, are you okay? What’s up, buddy?” Slowly, ever so slowly, the boy raised his head, greasy black hair covering most of his face but shining through was a set of wide, indigo-grey eyes shimmering with tears about the join the waterfall of their brethren already cascading down Keith’s too pale face. Pallid, more like. He looked as if he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in  days; face gaunt and sunken, chapped lips cracked, covered in dried blood and quivering. His eyes, despite the light reflected in them from the tears were dark and lifeless; huge, black eye-bags hung tiredly beneath them and long black lashes fluttered as Keith looked around in supposed terror, from what Lance could make of it. Whereas he didn’t appear to have consumed anything in days, he looked like he hadn’t slept in actual  _weeks_ and looking down, Lance spottedthe hundreds,  **_hundreds_** , of small slices - many still bleeding - littering his white, once so beautiful, skin. And upon closer inspection he found the origin of those marks: Keith’s BoM knife, actually covered in blood. 

 

Keith's blood. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yh. It doesn’t really make much sense but nor did my mind at the time that I wrote this. 
> 
> It was a baaaaaad day for my mental health.


End file.
